The Complete Works. O. Henry

      Vanity

       Table of Contents

      A Poet sang so wondrous sweet

       That toiling thousands paused and listened long;

       So lofty, strong and noble were his themes,

       It seemed that strength supernal swayed his song.

       He, god-like, chided poor, weak, weeping man,

       And bade him dry his foolish, shameful tears;

       Taught that each soul on its proud self should lean,

       And from that rampart scorn all earth-born fears.

       The Poet grovelled on a fresh heaped mound,

       Raised o’er the clay of one he’d fondly loved;

       And cursed the world, and drenched the sod with tears

       And all the flimsy mockery of his precepts proved.

      Collections of Short Stories:

       Table of Contents

       Cabbages And Kings

       Heart Of The West

       My Tussle With The Devil by O. Henry’s Ghost

       O Henryana

       Options

       Roads Of Destiny

       Rolling Stones

       Sixes And Sevens

       Strictly Business

       The Four Million

       The Gentle Grafter

       The Trimmed Lamp

       The Two Women

       The Voice Of The City

       Waifs And Strays

       Whirligigs

      Cabbages And Kings

       Table of Contents

       The Proem By The Carpenter

       “Fox-in-the-morning”

       The Lotus And The Bottle

       Smith

       Caught

       Cupid’s Exile Number Two

       The Phonograph And The Graft

       Money Maze

       The Admiral

       The Flag Paramount

       The Shamrock And The Palm

       The Remnants Of The Code

       Shoes

       Ships

       Masters Of Arts

       Dicky

       Rouge Et Noir

       Two Recalls

       The Vitagraphoscope

      The Proem By The Carpenter

       Table of Contents

      They will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast town of Coralio; that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences of an imminent revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars, government funds, which he carried with him in an American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never afterward recovered.

      For a real, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:

      RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES

      Y MIRAFLORES

      PRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICA

      DE ANCHURIA

      QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS

      It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man beyond the grave. “Let God be his judge!” — Even with the hundred thousand unfound, though greatly coveted, the hue and cry went no further than that.

      To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove to escape from the country with the public funds and also with Doña Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence, the Señorita Guilbert. They will relate further that Doña Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune